Putin rejects Ukraine’s ceasefire proposal, vows to seize four regions

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia will continue its campaign to fully capture four Ukrainian regions, rejecting a Ukrainian proposal for a mutual halt to long-range strikes and dismissing it as a ploy to relieve battlefield pressure on Kyiv's forces.

Moscow Rebuffs Negotiations on Its Terms

Speaking in a television interview on June 28, Putin said Ukraine had proposed a mutual cessation of long-range strikes as a step toward peace, but that Moscow viewed it as a means to allow Ukrainian forces to regroup along the roughly 1,250-kilometer front line. Putin said Ukrainian attacks were "aimed at diverting our attention and forces from achieving the main objectives — the complete liberation of Donbas and Novorossiya," referring to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as well as the adjacent Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts.usnews

Putin also declared that "saving the Kiev regime is not part of our plans" and reaffirmed Russia's intention to pursue what he called the "final liberation" of Donbas and Novorossiya. He warned of possible diversionary operations by Ukrainian special forces while insisting that strikes on Russian infrastructure had not critically affected the battlefield situation.youtube

Ukraine Declares 'Spirit of Anchorage' Dead

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha responded on Sunday by declaring that the so-called "Spirit of Anchorage" — a reference to supposed understandings reached between U.S. President Donald Trump and Putin during their August 2025 Alaska summit — is "certainly dead now".yenisafak+1

"Russians like to talk about the 'Spirit of Anchorage.' But like any spirit, no one really knows what it is," Sybiha wrote on the social media platform X. He argued that "any peace plan designed without Ukraine is destined to become a ghost and disappear".facebook

His comments followed statements by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that no formal deals had been concluded in Anchorage, contradicting Moscow's characterization of the summit's outcomes.kyivindependent

Diplomatic Impasse Deepens

The exchange marks another collapse in nascent diplomacy between Moscow and Kyiv. Putin has repeatedly rejected Ukrainian overtures in recent months, including turning down President Volodymyr Zelensky's request for a face-to-face meeting earlier in June, saying he saw "no purpose in it". Russia has demanded full control of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region along with sweeping political and military restrictions on its neighbor.aljazeera+1

The diplomatic deadlock comes amid intensifying fighting, with Russian forces pushing toward the Donetsk cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk and Ukraine conducting unprecedented drone strikes deep into Russian territory.nytimes+1